pethier

The problem I see on my Caterham is that the stainless guards are very good, but do not go high enough.

Please not diamond plate. It would look horrible and not be any more effective than flat.

I believe that in the context of headlight patterns "drive" and "traffic" are opposite terms. The United Kingdom has left-hand-traffic. Most of the cars you will encounter there have right-hand-drive. The United States of America has right-hand-traffic. Most of the cars you will encounter there have left-hand-drive. There are in the USA some locations where the traffic engineers intentionally direct cars to flip for a short distance to left-hand-traffic. They are apparently not overly-concerned that the low-beam headlight patterns of most cars will be incorrect for these short distances. Presently, one of my Sevens is a Caterham which has spent most of its life in Northwich UK. I am very unlikely to ever drive it outside of the USA and Canada. Its low-beam headlight patterns are now therefore incorrect for its environment. I am going to go to a local Toyota dealer and see if I can obtain this 81110-60P70 kit.

Let's take this to private mail.

I just bought a Birkin. It has long/sweep/clamshell fenders on it, but the seller did give me the cycle fenders he had. He claimed that they were with the car when he bought it, but that he never got the brackets to mount the cycle fenders to the uprights. These cycle fenders appear to have the same BRG paint as the car. Since the current setup requires the air cleaners to be removed to take off the hood, I think I might want to try cycle fenders on this car. What this all has to do with this thread: I have taken pictures of the style mounts that are on these cycle fenders. They appear better than the ones which were breaking for the author of this thread. I wonder what you all think of them compared to the upgraded ones shown elsewhere in this thead.

On Sevens, I go with the Yokohama Advan A052 for both street and autocross.

I am certainly not saying the driver was correct insulting the tech inspectors who were trying to protect him. His attitude was not productive, but it was certainly representative of some of the culture then in SCCA racing.

I did tell them I was leaving for a long trip and would be towing. When one brings a vehicle to this Ford dealer for service (whether one goes home or hangs in the customer lounge) one gets texts about every little detail. I typically get a half-dozen or so of these messages every time. Not a peep about tire pressure. In this context I would expect nothing less than a text telling me they thought the tire pressures were high. I do find it interesting that my 496-cubic-inch Suburban had posted on the door frame from Chevrolet that the tire pressures were to be 50 PSI in front and 80 PSI in back. The F-150 says 35 PSI on the door frame. The published load and towing weights for this F-150 with the towing package with which it was delivered new are similar to those of the Suburban. I understand your position that tires give their maximum traction when inflated to an ideal pressure taking into account weight on the tire patch, tire size, tire structure, wheel size, dynamic camber at expected cornering forces, and other things too numerous to mention. The traction of the Load Range E tires on this F-150 is perfectly-sufficient for the use of the vehicle at 80 PSI. Is 80 PSI ideal for traction and wear patterns? No. Is it sufficient for preventing tire-killing heat? Yes. I ran the Michelin LT all-weather tires on the Suburban at 50/80 year-around, towing and deadheading. I rotated them occasionally. I eventually wore out a set. They were very-evenly worn when I replaced them with another set of the same. The truck towed straight and true without benefit of any sway-control devices. (The motorhome requires a friction snubber). I could not seem to get the same Michelin tire for the F-150. New 4WD F-150 trucks are supplied with "terrain" tires. I have not looked at the tires on new trucks at the dealership to see the load range. My truck was used, and the dealer (sister-dealer to the one closer to my house where I get service) had replaced the tires with summer-tread car tires with a load rating and maximum PSI rating I consider insufficient. These Cooper tires were described as the most "highway friendly" of all the Load Range E tires offered me. I tried running them at 50/80. There was a lot of sway while towing. I put on the snubber and it knocked down the terrifying sway, but the snubber has a little play in the couplings which allows annoying amounts of sway. Raising the front pressure to 80 helped. The F-150 has a longer wheelbase and a shorter rear overhang than the Suburban, so is should have less sway, not more. The only significant variable appears to be tread squirm. Maybe next spring I will try to figure out how to get Michelin all-weather tires on this truck. I really don't want two sets of wheels because they are so large to store.

It does not. It was just the best insult that the driver (who may or may not have been Jack Baker) could think of for tech inspectors for making him add to his roll bar.

I no longer have my Ford Fusion, but I did have an issue with the dealer. There were several submodels of Fusion. Some, like mine, were supposed to have the lugnuts at 100 foot pounds, and others at 150. I often after the dealer had the car found that the lugs were damned tight. I suspect that the tech failed to pay attention to the submodel of Fusion and the diameter of the studs and tightened to 150 instead of 100. Now I have traded the Fusion for an F-150 and the knuckleheads take the air out of my tires. I have load-range-E tires on the truck because I tow a Seven or a Cayman (and recently a friend's Corvette) in my enclosed trailer. The tires I got for the truck to replace the darn CAR TIRES that were on it are Cooper load-range-E terrain tires. Even with the full-load 80 PSI in them the tread is squirmy. After an oil change, I went to pick up my trailer. In a bit of flukey wind, the rig with empty trailer was all over the road. I stopped to check the pressures: 36 PSI! They sent me a survey email and I sent back an email that they had better not deflate my tires if they wanted me to send in a favorable survey. They have promised to not do this again. Do you know how long it takes to get tires this big from 36 to 80 with a domestic-size compressor?

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. Some of these online sites are amazingly not intuitive.

So these are patterned for driving on the right side of the road? Cold be a good way to convert my English car to not blnd folks with my low beams.

I don't think I have ever seen "the stamped steel version" that looks like a MiniLite.

I have seen such additions on many race cars over the years. One such supported a Dymo label alleging that all technical inspectors engage in an unnatural act I will not describe here.

The 818 is outside the scope of this topic. I have an album of of pictures taken by me and by Kathy. The car is not in Lakeland, but near Mora Minnesota. https://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier/albums/72177720329434018/ The 818 is currently registered in Minnesota and the registration receipt has 2026 tabs stapled to it, which implies that there are actual license plates which, when the tabs are affixed, will be good through April 2026.

Interesting coincidence. I bought 7x15 Panasports for my 1979. They went with the car to a buyer on Cape Cod. By the time the car came to the most-recent who has contacted me, the Panasports were gone and only the green wheels remained. The ones I had were well-made and true. (I don't know how they came to be green, but the paint was very good also). Good luck with the sale. These will will be a great choice for someone going 13".

When I shipped wheels I went to tire/wheel shops and got boxes from them. They get wheels in from the makers and install wheels on customer cars, so have boxes. Nowadays the wheels are bigger, though.... BTW, those look like the wheels that came to me on my 1979 Caterham. Painted green. Last I heard, the current car owner still has them.

Shot in the dark: Have you tried Eibach's selection of sprint-car springs? I don't even know if they still do this, as it was a long time ago I bought springs for my Europa.

Nice. I don't have any wall space left at my place.

Fred did not run in the autocross. The car I rode in was also a 420. The red was a little more orange. That car was not in the concour, so...

Oops. Those feats were in my Elise. The Europa did OK in the earlier events.. I think my worst showing was when Hazen convinced me to drive his Sprite. I just checked the Internet, and there is a listing of Wamandee events AND the Afton events. https://waumandeetimetrials.com/results/ Afton Alps was happy to continue, but one person on some government body or other was going to refuse to vote to renew their permit for special events unless motorized events were prohibited. I can't blame Afton Alps for agreeing. They made a fortune off of "Mud Dash" events. That's what got Tom to start looking for a replacement, and he came up with Waumandee. He has worked very hard on this year after year. Of course the reason I searched the Internet to find this was for Dean. He was there for several events over the years. It looks like his best years were 2016 and 2022. I believe Kathy was there at Waumandee this year. She really likes Hazen, and his charismatic presentation of the rules. BTW, Afton Hillclimb was not on a ski hill. As you approach Afton Alps in your car, you are at the general elevation of this part of Minnesota. You drive in past the golf course. then you drive down a steep asphalt road (into the Saint Croix River valley) marked with a sign: "USE LOW GEAR" to discourage incidents with school busses and the like. At the bottom of the hill is a big asphalt lot with ticket kiosks. There are several footbridges across a stream to the chalet. Beyond the chalet there is a large parking area where the hillcllimb participants and spectators would park. The entire lot where the kiosks reside would be used for autocross. You start on a countdown which is heard on radio by the timing folks at the top of the hill. You proceed through an autocross on this flat area between the stream and the ski-lifts through a figure-8, past the kiosks, into a right which feeds a sweeping 180 and then up the hill. There are a few chicanes and one left bend in the road (that my cars never needed a lift for, just a prayer that there were no deer in the road) and up to the line at the top where they stopped your time for the entire course. Amery was different: There was a tight autocross on the apron which was timed separate from the speed-run. Time ended just as you started the straight-line speed-run on a taxiway which was scored by the readings from a radar gun. In later years, there were electronic timers for the autocross part. Course layouts varied from event to event, as did the location of the speed-run finish. Neither event had a return road.

It was the Waumandee hillclimb in Wisconsin. Tom Hazen used to be the EM for several driving events for the Minnesota Austin-Healey Club. I ran several cars in them (in more than one Afton Alps Ski Area hillclimb I had the fastest time in an un-supercharged car, my Europa). I had the fastest autocross time in an automobile at the Amery Airport autocross/speed-run one time (I do not consider shifter-karts "automobiles". When Tom started up the Waumandee hillclimb the insurance folks demanded cars only up to a model year older than both my 2005 Elise and my wife's 1973 Stag. I wound up never running that event, and kinda stopped paying attention to it. Now Dean and Kathy tell me the event accepts any car 20 years old and also they are starting to accept motorcycles. FTD last week was some young guy in a BMW (I assume car). I have not seen a results sheet.

Kathy remembers talking to "Scott".

OK, water rail. Explains the different fill location. Is that common on a Birkin? Is this then a 2000cc Zetec? Looks like the same throttle bodies Dean has also.

I have some pix of the Factory Five Racing 818S, but I have one foot in a track shoe right now.